Spotify sets its sights on iPhone

The Swedish music streaming service Spotify is planning to launch its first mobile application within weeks.

The company has submitted the application to Apple's iTunes App Store for its approval.

If given clearance, Spotify's service will then be available for users to download onto iPhones.

Spotify has been called an "iTunes killer" because of its ease of use and its comprehensive, free library of millions of songs.

It is also looked on as a possible saviour for the music industry, in its bid to offer alternatives to piracy.

The application is designed to search for new music and will allow users to temporarily store playlists to their phone for use when there is no connection.

It will also allow users to stream playlists.

Spotify has said the application will be free, but will require a premium subscription to use.

The premium service, which currently costs £9.99 a month allows uses to use Spotify on their computers without adverts.

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Solar eclipse: Cloudy skies spoil the show

Cloudy skies in large parts of northern and western India Wednesday marred a clear view of the century's longest total solar eclipse but the celestial spectacle was clearly visible over Varanasi.

Tens of thousands of people across the country rose early to see the eclipse that was to begin at the earliest at 5:29 a.m. and end at 7:41 a.m. in India.


It was to have been cleary visible in places like Surat, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Taregna near Patna, Daman, Darjeeling, Dibrugarh, Gangtok, Gaya, Itanagar, Ujjain and Vadodra.

A partial eclipse was to have been visible in many other towns and cities.

A total eclipse occurred when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, completely obscuring the sun. During the eclipse, totality is visible only from a narrow track on the surface of the earth.

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Yahoo's front page makeover

Yahoo has unveiled sweeping changes to its front page aimed at shoring up its position as the main portal to the web.

Consumers in the US are the first to benefit from a new, customisable format which lets them link to third parties like Google and Twitter.

The new style will be introduced to parts of Europe and India later this week and Asia later in the year.

"We want to be at the centre of people's lives online," said Yahoo's consumer experiences head Tapan Bhat.

"There is a destination for everything you are about in just a click or two. Now we are looking at Yahoo holistically, all centred around the user," Mr Bhat told reporters in a conference call.

The key is personalisation and the biggest change involves a bar on the left hand side of the page, called My Favorites. Here, users can customise links to Yahoo and other services they use the most from news to social networks to email to movies.

While there are over 60 of these applications at the moment, consumers can add their own by typing in web addresses.

There are also plans to allow other software developers to design their own, more sophisticated applications that people can add.

"The new homepage is designed to make Yahoo the web's number one destination portal by once again giving people one place to access everything," said Ben Parr, associate editor of social media blog Mashable.com.

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26/11 case: Kasab confesses in court

In a surprise move, main accused Ajmal Amir Kasab confessed to his involvement in the Mumbai attacks. He narrated the entire sequence of events leading to the terror strikes on November 26, 2008.

The lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks named Lashkar-e-Toiba's Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi as the mastermind behind the attacks. He also named Abu Hamza as one of the Pakistani handlers.

The Mumbai attacks had claimed more than 150 lives and left many injured.

Kasab is believed to be a resident of Faridkot in Pakistan. He is currently lodged in Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.

In his confessional statement, Kasab said he and other terrorists were brought from Karachi, led by Lakhvi and Abu Hamza.

Kasab's defence was taken by surprise at his admission.

Earlier, a magazine report claimed Kasab was taught combat techniques by the Pakistan Marines after being extensively trained by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) at its various camps.

The magazine quoted Kasab's interrogation report by an intelligence agency.

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Symbian to develop mobile apps

Symbian, the operating system on nearly half the world's smartphones, is to become involved in the development of mobile applications, or apps.

Symbian will be a one-stop location for app developers, standardising and testing software and then making it available to existing app storefronts.

Called Horizon, the approach follows the lead set by other operating system makers such as Microsoft and Apple.

The not-for-profit Symbian Foundation will launch the service in October.

The announcement of Horizon follows Apple's statement on Tuesday that its App Store has seen 1.5 billion app downloads in a year, showing that a significant market exists for a centralised source of application software.

Handset manufacturers, mobile network operators and independent sites have opened their own application stores, but Horizon will aim to provide a centralised, smooth route to market to solidify Symbian's place in an increasingly crowded operating system market.

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850 families moved to safer places in rain-hit Gujarat

Over 850 families in Veraval and Mangrol talukas of Junagadh were shifted to safer and higher places following incessant rains for the past couple of days, district officials said on Thursday.

Relief camps have been set up for the displaced families where food packets and other necessary items were being distributed, they said, adding that water in many parts of Mangrol and Veraval have started receding since Wednesday morning.

"Four hundred families in Veraval taluka were shifted to higher grounds last night following heavy rains. In Mangrol over 480 families have been shifted till today," district officials said.

The Army has been on the stand by since Wednesday in Junagadh district.

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Indian-origin scientists develop talking cars

Talking cars aren't science fiction anymore -- thanks to scientists who have developed a set of algorithms that will allow robotic cars of the future to communicate with each other to help avoid collisions.

An international team, led by Indian-origin scientists Dr Bhibhya Sharma and Dr Utesh Chand of the University of the South Pacific, has developed the mathematical equations which would also instruct robotic cars how to change lanes safely.

According to Dr Sharma, the series of mathematical equations would instruct robotic cars when and how to merge lanes, which could lead to less accidents and ease traffic congestions.

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